


Strawberry Pavlova

by entanglednow



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs Hudson notices more than people think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strawberry Pavlova

Mrs Hudson didn't entertain often, not properly. But she was making an exception for New Year's, a proper friends and family thing. Since enough of the family were close enough to 'collide together in a mutually satisfactory way,' as Sherlock had said just the other day. She wouldn't have phrased it like that herself, of course, but it had been kindly meant, in his special sort of way.

She'd almost immediately been cornered by her cousin Herbert in the kitchen, with a pressing and unstoppable desire to talk about the ulcer he thought he was developing.

The conversation had been interrupted, thankfully, by a dreadful racket from upstairs. It sounded rather like two men pressing their amorous intentions upon one another. But Mrs Hudson, who had some experience with these things, suspected it was actually the sound of someone being hit repeatedly with a chair, and then thrown into a wardrobe. If there were sword marks in the plaster again, she was going to have to say something. She was awful at explaining things like that to the builders.

Herbert had gone terribly quiet after that.

Mrs Hudson had tutted genially, and cleaned as much ceiling plaster as she could out of the canapes.

She was past the age where she could be imbibing at will. She'd pay for it sooner than most. But that didn't mean she couldn't keep up the appearance of drinking. Let Mrs Waldorf and her daughter Vivian think unkind things about her if they wanted to. She hadn't always thought kindly of the other woman, though she'd never said anything. Thought it loudly maybe, on more than one occasion, perhaps _muttered_ once or twice.

When young Jeff helped her carry out more alcohol there were new guests in the room. One of them was a dramatically pouty blonde woman, tall enough that her mother would have used the word 'coltish' (and not entirely kindly.) She was lurking near the table, all petulant red mouth and slightly too much bare thigh. Mrs Hudson didn't recognise her, though it wouldn't be the first time one of the boys had invited a woman and not said anything. John Watson had appeared at some point too, but she wasn't going to complain about that. John was always welcome. Though even as she watched John's mouth curled up at the edge, and Mrs Hudson had only ever seen him give that smile to one person. Her eyesight wasn't what it used to be, but once she saw it she couldn't _not_ see it. It was like an optical illusion, wrought in bare skin and make-up. Sherlock's mouth, under the over-bright shade of lipstick. He really was very good at the disguises. He'd clearly put a lot of thought into it. Not like Mr Renton from a few years back, who'd picked his clothes well but couldn't do hair for the life of him, poor man.

Young Jeff seemed to think he had something of a chance there, and was already working his way across the room. She didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise.

She had a few minutes to worry if Sherlock being here meant there was some sort of hardened criminal among her party guests. You wouldn't know it for looking after all. But she was distracted away from all that when Mrs Waldorf found the Strawberry Pavlova, and that would all be gone before nine if she didn't make a point of it.

She was cutting it in the kitchen an hour later - and one of her best knives was missing, she hoped that wasn't going to turn up in the back of some Russian assassin - when she heard a series of irritated thumps. Which sounded for all the world like the sound of someone changing in a very small space. She looked down, and tried to place what didn't belong in the kitchen. When she spotted them she pushed them slightly closer to the quiet, shuffling noises.

"Shoes are next to the empty wine bottles dear," she called over her shoulder - and nudged the larder back open with a hip. When she carried the cake out she could swear she heard running feet on the roof, and she had no idea where that man found his energy

She was almost certain she heard a gunshot, somewhere between the fourth chime and the fifth. She wasn't sure if that was an accident, or something of an apology. Still, she wasn't going to complain. Young people having adventures, who had the heart to stop them.

When she went to take the bins out at almost one in the morning she found Sherlock lurking in her doorway. He looked like the cat that ate the canary _and_ the cream. He hadn't quite managed to wipe off the last of the lipstick either. But it was rather dashing. It made him looked bruised and faintly debauched - in a way she could still appreciate at her age, no matter what Mrs Waldorf thought.

She let him lean in close enough to press the side of his face against her cheek. She expected it to be cold from outside, but it wasn't. It was warm like he'd been running, or struggling with someone. She squeezed him - still too thin that man, she'd have to have a word with John - and wished him Happy New Year.

"You too, John," she added, because the shadow couldn't be anyone else. He moved forward a little, squinting in the light. He looked dazed and befuddled, and had - not entirely surprising by then - a smear of red across his own mouth.

She let them drift past her up the stairs, before she shut her own door. But she could still hear Sherlock protesting that it was 'traditional.' Followed by some sort of nonsense that that was the thinnest excuse John had ever heard.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Strawberry Pavlova](https://archiveofourown.org/works/543834) by [LadyofMisrule](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofMisrule/pseuds/LadyofMisrule)




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